A note before going on: the way you design the rooms in your home should really reflect the overall character of the building. So pine furniture in a postmodern flat doesn’t really work. In a family home, a country cottage or an older townhouse, though, it can be perfect. Sturdy. Long lasting and great looking, items made from pine work just as well as single pieces or as part of a whole room setup.
Every time you design the way a room is going to look, your first thought has to be its purpose. What is the room for? Who uses it and why? At this stage of your room design you should have an idea of the kinds of furniture pieces that will go in there, and why: this will help you dictate the actual items of pine furniture you end up buying.
In general terms, dressing a
whole room in pine gives one of two feelings. In a neatly decorated modern
space, a rage of pine furniture can supply a clean modern look, nice pale
natural wood colours against the pastels of the walls. In a more traditional
setting, using all pine furniture
means you deliver a very rustic look, like a farmhouse kitchen or a cottage
dining room.
Pine pieces also work
excellently as one off inclusions in rooms with soft furnishings. For example,
a pine coffee table can look wonderful with a range of décor schemes,
particularly those flavoured with a touch of the Middle East. Moroccan drapes
and lush coloured throws combine nicely with the pale, sturdy quality of pine
to create a really cosy, travel themed room.
A pine chest can be a wonderful
addition to a lounge, living room or open plan dining and living area. While
pine cabinets make excellent TV stands, with the cabinet underneath providing
the perfect place to store the media centre or your favourite DVDs.
Pine furniture may be purchased
either as completely natural, treated wood, or with a painted finish. You can
get a really rustic look going by sanding pine and applying tin layers of white
or blue paint. The end result is a piece of furniture that looks as though it
has aged – a style referred to as Colonial in the States, and shabby chic in
the UK.
Most people tend to opt for
natural colours when they choose pine furniture. The wood ages well and becomes
slightly paler as the years go on. If you leave it untreated it may develop a
slivery sheen, which looks quite marvellous – but to do this you have to be
able to guarantee that it won’t have a serious amount of rough and tumble going
on around it, otherwise the soft wood will dent and splinter.
Treated pine, however, is
sturdy and repels the advances of most young buccaneers – making it ideal for a
child’s bedroom. Also, when you buy pine furniture for kid’s rooms you don’t
have to second guess what their favourite colour will be in 5 years’ time –
just leave the wood bare!
In a neatly decorated modern
space, a rage of pine furniture can supply a clean modern look, nice pale
natural wood colours against the pastels of the walls.
